Sunday, December 21, 2008

The Planning Begins - Southern Rockies 2009??

As the doldrums of winter set in, I have decided to get my fishing “fix” by planning my 2009 trip to the Rockies.

2007 was the Northern Rockies Roadtrip, including completion of the Wyoming Cuttslam. 2008 was the Colorado Cuttslam, including a trip to the top of Mt. Elbert (2nd highest peak in the lower 48).

The 2008 trip was probably the best trip to the Rockies to date. I took a good friend to Colorado for the first time, caught all three native cutthroat species, caught my first stream grayling, my first Kokanee salmon, put my younger brother on the third and final cutthroat species, climbed my second 14er, and met rodmaker Mike Clark….quite a list!

My debate now is: do I take my younger brother to Wyoming to complete the Wyoming Cuttslam or do I swing south for the Southern Rockies Roadtrip? I don’t know if my brother will have the vacation time and I really want to add the Gila and Apache trout to my list of native species:

As I look at the atlas, I check my route and see that from eastern Arizona I can head north into Utah and visit Arches National Park before I loop back to Colorado.

As I get closer to my trip (if I choose the southern adventure), I will make contact with the fisheries biologists, fellow bloggers, and even TU resources.

I also plan to take another day out of the trip to add another 14er to my list - how about four more. I found a loop, in the bristlecone pine area Phil and I visited earlier this year, that catches FOUR 14er peaks:

I know this is not the typical fishing report blog, but this is the time of year when the days on the water are scarce so I do this to keep my sanity.

1 comment:

I can't believe I hadn't seen your blog until now. Your past trips to the rockies seemed pretty impressive. I've yet to add a Greenback and Rio Grande to my list but am certainly planning to. I hope to get to Rocky Mountain National Park for the the Greenbacks, and I'd like to do some off-trail backpacking into forest canyon to get them.

If you do get to New Mexico, good luck with the Gila trout. I was told by a local after the fact that it was too hot where I fished for Gila at that time and that they were likely upstream in cooler water. Not sure it they move that much but other folks have told me they caught them in the same holes I photographed.

Let me know if you ever plan on fishing the Sierra and we can exchange some information. The divrsity of trout in the southern sierra is pretty amazing and a solid pack trip can put you on three different species.